A first draft you aren't satisfied with is better than a brilliant draft that doesn't exist.

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Patron Blog #6

So surprisingly I haven’t posted much in the way of updates or blogs, but I have actually started getting down to the business of some real writing. Currently sitting at Starbucks, my new favorite place to be creative (my room has a desk but it’s very cramped and claustrophobic, and it’s in my family’s house which is a pretty toxic environment. Also their wifi is much better here), but there is apparently a huge winter storm coming, so naturally all of North and South Carolina have to shut down the moment a snowflake hits the ground. As such, they’re closing early so I only have half an hour to write this.

Also between that paragraph and this one I completely forgot that I was doing this, and ended up writing someone a long Victorian-style letter on Facebook asking for dick pics. Because I’m not just sexually deviant, I’m CLASSY and sexually deviant.

So I’ve finally finally finally started writing my novel. No bullshit. And though it’s been a week or two since the last installment, that doesn’t mean I’m not working on it. I’ve started a project to transcribe all of the notes from my phone, computer, emails and various other places into one extensive document or set of documents, but that’s not even nearly complete.

I started writing my fantasy novel, which has for years been referred to as Fairy Tale or the Fairies Awakening. I don’t know what the title will really be and I’ve been reluctant to call the first draft by either of those names because I’m superstitious that it will inherit the problems of Fairy Tale rather than being it’s own project. As such I’m just referring to it as “my fantasy novel” for the moment.

Things changed when I got the idea of including a goblin as a character. I’ve noticed that just about any mythical creature or magical being has already been translated from it’s original folkloric form into something beautiful and modern: vampires, fairies, elves, werewolves, shapeshifters, and on and on. But I haven’t seen a lot of beautiful, elegant, and inspiring goblin characters. The only one I’m even aware of is David Bowie’s Goblin King from Labyrinth. I saw the movie somewhat recently but I didn’t actually finish it, and truthfully I found it a bit boring, but the Goblin King was the only thing that I really found interesting. So I thought it would be fun to try and translate goblins into some original. I’m sure someone else has already done it, and when it comes to fantasy it’s difficult not to trod upon ground that has already been done to death or that was already done better than anyone else can really hope by Tolkien, but it’s worth a try. And either way, it gave me the creative boost I needed to start.

I wrote the prologue a few months ago, and it’s still the same, I just excised a little expository passage from the end of it and started chapter one afresh. The new version of the story has a distinctly different feel, which both excites and scares me. But I’ve received good feedback so far from everyone who’s read along. I’m also learning a lot more about what my weaknesses are, which is scary but also a good thing that will help me improve as a writer. I’m also starting to figure out what it is I need to research, and I haven’t really begun that process, but I figure I’ll probably research as I go along.

And then, by accident, I started working on a SECOND book right after the first. This one isn’t a fantasy novel, it’s an autobiography. My life has a lot of pretty ridiculous stories, and people always enjoy hearing me tell them. I’ve thought about trying to tell them through standup comedy, but I’m afraid that they aren’t inherently funny enough to hold the attention of an audience with the expectation that they’re going to laugh. Margaret Cho can do it, but I don’t know if I’m quite ready. I still want to try standuop at some point though. But more on that later.

Fifteen minutes now until closing time, I have to hurry up. So anyhow, I’ve decided to start writing an autobiography focused around my ridiculous, entertaining, hilarious and sometimes heartbreaking sexual history. I like talking openly about sex and I accidentally discovered that writing this will give me the perfect platform to talk about my feelings on a variety of sexual topics: monogamy, polyamory, incest, pedophilia, bestiality, all of the things we don’t want to talk about, I want to really bring them out into the open and try to start an open and honest dialogue about them. Maybe it will destroy any chance I have of being a reputable author. I guess I can’t say that I don’t care, but I also know that I can’t remain silent when there’s something important that we should be talking about.

I also want to thank thank THANK you guys, I’ve received a few new patrons and a couple of BIG pledges, getting me past my first milestone goal of $20 per month. I just checked back and I’m actually back down beneath $20, so I guess someone must have left or changed their pledge, but either way it’s fine, my Patreon is growing little by litte, and I’m confident that if I keep providing, more patrons will come.

I don’t have much time to talk about anything else. I will say that I wrote another installment in my sexual memoir, but truthfully I’m a little afraid to post it. Put plainly: it’s about my brother. I was raised an only child, my odler brother was adopted before I was born and raised by a distant family member, so I didn’t really get to interact with him until I was thirteen and he was nineteen, and I was just coming into my sexuality, and I had a big crush on him. He was a beautiful guy who walked around the house half naked all hours of the day, and I was this shy awkward little gay guy who’d never so much as seen a guy with his shirt off, and I just couldn’t help but develop a huge crush on him. I know that that ruffles people a little, and I understand that. I talk in graphic detail about my sexual interest in him. Nothing ever happened between us, but I know that that could be something that might be disturbing for some people to read. But I want to TALK about it, so that I can understand my own feelings and maybe start a discussion on incest, and where the line is, and what’s healthy and what isn’t.

But I’m afraid to post it. And it isn’t even the biggest secret I plan to reveal in this book. So… it’s scary. Let me know if you’re interested in reading and I’ll try to work up the courage to post it.